LIA – early pioneer of Software and Net Art

Lia’s works of art are digital programs that she puts together out of sequences of code. For this, she applies methods that arose in the evolution of programming tradition and that have become generally known internationally as “Software Art”, “Generative Art”, or “interactive Art”.

Lia’s art is communication – a game with the principle of the “user”. Her working material is code, digital poetry, which no longer has anything in common with the traditional use. With numerous experiments and consciously evoked irregularities, she creates programs in an unmistakable style that trigger formal and acoustic events. On the basis of the beginning settings she provides and the possibilites thereby permitted, players can steer the course of the application themselves. Her art consequently corresponds to the idea of “creation”, the invention of a self-controlling system that evolves from an original configuration.

The work title I Said If refers to Lia’s overall artistic stance. In software code, the word “if” generally launches a monitoring of existing states that, in connection with randomness generators, permit a great number of branching developments.

Lia limits the possibilities of shaping in that system collapse is ruled out and by maintaining her own desires for the framework in which the work of art can develop. The user thereby always moves within the field of vision of her own understanding of art; but within it, he can move freely enough that his own creativity is a decisive component of the work.

Another meaning of Lia’s works consists in their hybridism between mass art and unique pieces: www.isaidif.net is an easily accessed online game that can be played without registration, fees, or the requirement to join a group. At the same time, it is a unique code, one of a kind in connection with its domain, thereby becoming a unique piece that can be archived and collected.

I Said If has been installed in a three-dimensional presentation for the first time in the exhibition “Art Machines Machine Art. The work thereby moved out of its online environment into space, where, as a virtual audiovisuall art machine, it created an intense new physical experience.